matutolypea
Apr. 3rd, 2013 07:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordmatutolypea (mah-TOO-tuh-loh-PEE-uh) - n., the state of having gotten up on the wrong side of the bed.
That is, being ill-humored and out of sorts esp. in the morning -- though for many, in my experience, the condition lasts through the day. This is not, as one might think, a 17th-century Latinate borrowing decayed into a $20 word, but rather a recent coinage -- as in apparently within the last 20 years, which might explain why it's actually a mixture of languages: Latin matuta from Mater Matuta, a Roman goddess of the dawn (as well as childbirth, ripening grain, and mariners) + Greek lype, grief/sorrow.
---L.
That is, being ill-humored and out of sorts esp. in the morning -- though for many, in my experience, the condition lasts through the day. This is not, as one might think, a 17th-century Latinate borrowing decayed into a $20 word, but rather a recent coinage -- as in apparently within the last 20 years, which might explain why it's actually a mixture of languages: Latin matuta from Mater Matuta, a Roman goddess of the dawn (as well as childbirth, ripening grain, and mariners) + Greek lype, grief/sorrow.
---L.
